-Glory to God

Give glory to God, that's all I can do.

I am not worthy, and I must work very hard to be in union with Him. Only with Him is it possible.

-Salzburg and Munich

Last Friday I left for Salzburg with the school. As I said in the last blog, Salzburg was where The Sound of Music was filmed. When we came to those areas in the town, the women in the group went wild (and some of the men, too), dancing and singing to the songs. If you remember there is one part in the movie where Julie Andrews and the children run under an ivy tunnel singing. In Salzburg, it was actually blocked off, but the students wanted to go through it so bad, they were really looking forward to it - so they did anyway. And not just a few, almost all of them just ran and ran and ran, singing and waving their arms. They were happy. It was hilarious to watch them loosen up and run free.

I visited many churches in Munich and our priests celebrated Mass in one of them. On Saturday we went to Munich. We had Mass as soon as we arrived there in the Church where Pope Benedict was a cardinal. It was a white, gothic church, very beautiful with many side chapels. After Mass, there was a short tour and then we had the rest of the day for free time. I walked around the city with three other girls. We went to many churches, a food market, and walked through many streets. The open food market was neat to walk through because we were able to experience the culture and see all sorts of food.

The hostel (my first hostel!) we stayed at for the weekend was in Salzburg. On Sunday we went to Mass at the Cathedral in Salzburg; the Mass was in German. It was different than Mass in America, how they stand and sit. How they leave the pews for communion was also different. Either way, there was still praise to God - and that is the most important.

What I enjoyed most was worshipping God with people who have a completely different cultural background than I do. I did not understand what was said during the Mass, but I was fully aware what was happening. I knew that what they were saying was worship to God.

There was a choir that sings at that Mass that people from all over come to hear. Now what is sad about that is that they attend the Mass just to hear the choir, not out of reverance for our Lord. Another thing is after all the students attended the Mass, we all had different opinions of what we thought of the Mass and the choir, but here is what I thought:

I know that it is sad that they are only attending Mass for that sake, but they are there and that is great; however, I did not notice that the entire Mass or think about it - I do not think even once. All I could think about was how incredible this choir was and that they were doing this at Mass, for the glory of God - our ultimate goal. They work this hard to sing so well TO PRAISE OUR SAVIOR. It also made me think of how beautiful the cathedral was and how much work and minute detail went into the architecture just for the glory of God. How beautiful.

That's what I want to do.
Just as the choir and architects did, I want to give glory to God in the way that I am called to, with the gifts that I have been given. Spend all my energy and time into serving Him. Amen.

Christopher, maybe one of your drafting projects in school will be to design the inside of a Church. Make it grand!

-Classes began, day at Vienna, Mass with Bishop Kung

School started last week and I wanted to have a good start, so I was not able to blog till now. Thanks for the reminder, Dan, in which order to do things, I appreciate that. And it was great to get a comment. I like to hear comments, because I only hear one side, my side, it's nice to hear what ya'll think.

I'm enjoying all of my classes: Church Theology, Moral Theology, Principle Biblical Studies II, Liturgy and the Catechism in Scripture, Christian Spirituality, and European History. I'm really getting into all of them and learning many things.

We had another school trip to Vienna last Saturday. It was neat to see what used to be the capital of Europe. We had Mass there at Our Lady of the Snows. I very much enjoy going to all the old Churches, not American old, but real old. It's hard to describe my entire experience, but I will brief over some of what I saw. What was interesting about Our Lady of the Snows Church, was the fresco behind the altar. The smaller fresco that you see inside of the larger fresco was the image that was there before the religious that were there were told to leave during time of persecution. When they returned they brought it back and there is now the other one surrounding it.

This other is a bigger than life-size fresco of the Last Supper. Incredible to see in person.

After Mass, we toured the city, split into groups some of the staff and faculty were out tour guides. The tour guides in my group were Vince (on the right), the resident director, and Father Brad (on the left), one of the Franciscan Friars here. Both seemed to know a lot about the city and its history.

Things I liked seeing in Vienna:

the palace where the Hofsburg family lived,

Saint Michael Church (also known as the servant's church),

Cafe Griendsteide where Bambi was written,

all from the same balcony at the palace - Hitler gave a speech, Pope John Paul II gave a speech about peace, and Father Denny and some students gave praise and worship to God,

a confession sign in one of the churches (next to each word is a switch, I assume to light up a confessional or something of the sort),

a store I thought had a neat name (my favorite color),

the end of some of the best horses in the world (I apologize I forgot the name of them, and that I got only the end of the horse, camera difficulties),

and a statue. I learned that if two of the horses feet were up, it meant the man was wounded, if only one was up, he died a natural death.


It was all neat, and a great experience. I cannot emphasize enough how incredible it is to see these things and pray in these churches. I could spend all my time in these churches and praying in them.

Yesterday there was a lot of excitement at the Kartause. Bishop Kung came to welcome the students. He celebrated Mass and then had a group picture with the students. I was the reader. It's different reading in a Church that echoes so much. The Bishop spoke about christian unity.

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Salzburg and Munich later on. Salzburg is where The Sound of Music was recorded. Right now the students and I are gathered in the Kartause, watching the movie in preparation for the trip, haha.

I'm praying for ya'll every where I go.

-Tour of Gaming

After orientation today, we toured Gaming on our way to Mass. I was able to see where many things were including several banks, a grocery store, a produce store, the post office, the town hall, and other historical marks. The parish at Gaming, which is dedicated to Saints Phillip and James (but referred to as the parish at Gaming), was beautiful. It was also very old and there Christmas decorations were up still, as I have noticed in the other churches I have been to. They all so far decorate for Christmas with gold, and not red, like I tend to see more in the states.

This is a sewing supplies store (shown above) less than five minutes walking from the Kartause (where I live). I'm excited about that, but I have not gone in it yet.

This is a punishment pole that people used to be published publicly. It is the only one left in the city.

Painting of Saint Leonard in the parish at Gaming, patron saint of cattle (for all you country folk).

This is the organ at the parish at Gaming. When Mozart was six years old, he played on this same organ.

Mom, this picture of the organ is just for you. Notice the clock that is built on it, it is neat.

This really struck me. Below is the creche scene with a painting. Notice above it all the angel statues. The painting is very large so you can imagine the angels are life (baby) size as well. It is incredible to see in person.

This is Ashley and me. She is from Waco.

-Monastery at Admont

Today we went to the monastery at Admont. It took four big (nice) buses to get there. As we were about to take off the driver stood up, turned on the microphone, and said something in German. I think he all expected us to understand, but we just got quiet and stared back with blank faces. Our group leader saw our reaction and then translated for us. It was a funny moment.



The trip there was beautiful. We drove between the mountains, and it was very windy. They warned us that even those that do not get motion sickness had a high chance of getting it then. So if we wanted they provided travel gum with special stuff in it or Dramamine.

We toured the monastery, sort of. The highlight was the library that held at least 200,000 books. This monastery is very old, so naturally, the books are old. The ceiling of the library was very tall and had a gallery/balcony with books all along the high wall. From the floor, you cannot figure out how to get there, for there are no visible stairs. The tour guide brought us to one of the five hidden doors. Here was a mock shelf with mock books and with a special key it was opened. Very nifty.

After that we went through a museum. It was an animal, insects, and fruit museum. It had like every kind of insect, I never knew that some got that big and so scary looking. There were beetles the size of mice. There was a section with probably every kind of apple. One girl said, "Don't you wish you had a kitchen that held every kind of apple?" while a boy student made a funny sarcastic comment how boring and uneventful the apple section was. I liked the drastic views on the room. My view was more like the girl's view, but I don't enjoy eating apples, so they would just rot in my kitchen.

Mass was wonderful, especially attending with my entire Gaming (about 160 students) school. The Church was beautiful, especially because our Lord was present with us.

I'm still experiencing what we call jetlag. I'm not a fan, but I'll get over it. I did recieve my luggage today, praise God.

-Safe Arrival

I've arrived.

Here's my luggage, me and a little monkey if you look hard enough. I'm here in Austria with all of that except the smallest suitcase (with my textbooks in it, so pray it arrives here before classes begin on Thursday).

I'm settling in well. My room is set up nicely. Dad, I made my bed this morning. . . but you never know.

So I survived the first night. I got a good nine hours sleep, but at 1:30am here (6:30 pm for ya'll) I was wide awake, but I just waited it out till I fell back asleep. Today there is an Austria talk and then we are all taking buses to Admont to tour the monastery at Admont, eat lunch at Gasthaus Pirafelner, and attend Mass. Admont is about an hour away from here.

The view outside my window is the courtyard and where people would arrive if coming in. Past that is part of the town or maybe houses, not sure. It's neat too look at them, because the buildings are designed different in America, and there is smoke coming from all of their chimneys. It's like a movie! Past that are big mountains, they are very pretty. I can't see it from my room, but if I am outside, behind my dorm, there is a huge mountain basically right there, it's kinda intimidating, but it's neat to be near something so big.

It is cold outside, and just a very light layer of snow. My jacket is working nicely. This morning at breakfast, Rebecca spilled water and we didn't realize it had gotten on my jacket. She saw it later and then we made a joke of it because she felt bad because she spilt it on there but my jacket is waterproof so it didn't affect it at all, hehehe.